What does "Proship" mean?

Shipping is when you want two fictional characters to be in a relationship. Proshipping is when you have a sort of "anything goes" view of shipping and think it's okay for any characters to be shipped together, even in inappropriate relationships (like, say, an adult being shipped with a minor). 

Oh God… It’s a thing in online fandom communities. *Shipping* refers to being emotionally invested in a certain romantic relationship between two characters. *Proshipper* is a general term for someone who ships characters in a way that could be unethical if they were real people (like one is a teenager, dubious consent, abuse, etc.)

"proship" means people that like imagining/writing about/drawing fictional characters being romantic together/ having sex. AntiShip/Antis is the people who hate that. Ship in this case is an abbreviation for relation**ship.** Its more internet slang than a real part of English.

This is a bit of a niche jargon that is not a part of standard English. You'll probably get a more detailed answer from a sub such as /r/AO3 (where I most often see the topic discussed). The core of the "proship" philosophy is that there are no ethical issues with depicting an unethical fictional relationship. The opposite philosophy ("antiship") argues that despite such relationships being fictional, the ethical concerns of the relationship extend to the artist who is depicting them. It's a topic that gets hotly debated in certain circles, but the majority of people never really get involved with the debate, and so will be unfamiliar with the terms used.

You probably could guess from context clues, but proship isn't a common word outside specific online circles. If someone at work said "these proshippers are driving me nuts" I would have no idea what they meant until they gave context. Very chronically online word

I can honestly say that as a native English speaker I’ve never heard of proship and will probably never use it.

Proship stems from "problematic shippingmaking characters be in a relationship" (shipping as in making characters be in a relation*ship)* Aka, a proshipper thinks any ship (such as adult/minor, or incest, or abusive dynamics) is okay (doesn't mean they enjoy it necessarily, just that people can ship WHATEVER they want and it doesn't matter) as long as it's fictional. The opposite of this would be an antishipper, or against proshippers. The abbrevating of "problematic" to "pro" makes it confusing for everyone lol.


That’s a fandom term, not something in common usage. There’s controversy over what the term even means, so for simplicity this is what Wiktionary says: One who supports a ship or shipping deemed problematic (e.g., due to incest, age differences, abusive dynamics, etc.), and/or believes in the freedom to create and consume fanworks with such elements. The definition is self-explanatory as to why people would hate it.